“Magic, as far as you know.”
They regrouped and collected everything of use from the satchels of their fallen company. Garrick looted Ritter’s body of everything before flinging the corpse onto the roaring flame. He didn’t bother asking if anyone had anything comforting to say.
Timothy was at the start of the mountain path, looking down into the water far below. Sebastian peered over and nudged his shoulder.
“What are you doing with your share of the bounty, kid?”
Timothy’s eyes were glassy. “Haven’t given it any thought.”
“We both know you’re university-bound. No more trawling the night looking for dragsmen, aye?”
“How can I face that place now? How do I advocate for civilized ideals in the wake of the things I’ve done?”
“No one needs to know the things you’ve done, any more than they need to know you once had great pox on your cock…”
“Because of a whore that you had me lie with.”
“We got you an injection for that…cleared it right up,” Sebastian said.
“After a month.”
“Well, when do I get to hear the end of that?”
“Never.”
Something approaching a fond smile sat at the corners of Timothy’s mouth. When he saw that Sebastian had noticed, he turned away to mask the levity.
“I would hate to see you punish yourself simply because you think you've compromised your ideals. No one makes it through life without doing that. It’s all in how you make up for it.”
“I get it,” Timothy said, “but each killing gets easier.”
“And each has been justified, but that doesn’t mean you gotta like it.”
“Good, because I don’t. The echelons of university deserve better men than I.” He fished the battered copy of Two Treatises out of his satchel and waved it around. “I saw myself in this world once…but no more.”
“Don’t act like you’re beneath them now, kid. Before your time, Evan and I chased down one of those academics for drugging and pegging his students. He took the position so he could slither up next to impressionable minds and violate them. You’re still a scholar, now more than ever.”
Garrick wedged his way in between them and motioned for them to follow. “Listen to Sebastian, because you’re certainly no killer.”
They fanned out single file and started down the mountain.
“Thank God for that,” Timothy said. “I’d rather stand in front of a bunch of hungry minds and advocate science and reason over this, witch-finder.”
“Call me witch-finder once more, and I’ll leave you burning atop that pyre with Ritter.”
Sebastian’s hand curled around the hilt of his pistol. Bickering was not uncommon for these two. Only the threats were new.
“Why would I refrain from calling you what you are?” Timothy said. “You take orders from the church. Execute those who are kissed by Satan…”
“What makes you certain that I take orders from the church?”
“You spoke once of your familiarity with Vatican City. Why else would a murderer like you know that place…witch-finder?”
The kid’s goading put Sebastian on the defensive.
“You ever see a witch-finder do anything other than burn peasant girls at the stake? Or look for third nipples on the chests of vagrants? I ask, because I have not.”
“You’re no better than they are, then. Killing men in cold blood. Throwing lives away like game pieces.”
“You can do better?”
“Couldn’t do worse,” Timothy said.
“No man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience,” Garrick said. “Sound familiar? Or do you only preach Locke when it can be used to condemn our incivility?”
The kid rolled his eyes and continued walking.
“Silence from here,” Garrick said after some time. “Finding Raven is all that matters.”
Sebastian used a rag from Ritter’s shirt to wipe wolf’s blood off his silver blade. Not even the mightiest creature could’ve survived the damage they had doled, let alone that fall.
Garrick needed to know for sure, which meant one last follow.
I can do this.
He grabbed for his flask and took a generous swig of London gin, closed his eyes, and let it set fire to his throat.
A taste of the home he longed for.
***
Elisabeth bled out in the mud, dreaming. A recent memory that filled her thoughts with warmth as her body shivered in shock.
She stepped outside the manor house into the late August air. The sun was bright enough to wrinkle her brow and she squinted through it. Aetius trotted by her side, keeping the form he felt most comfortable wearing. The wolf lapped her naked thighs and panted as she walked.
Across the bridge and down the hill, her pups trounced what remained of the village populace. This was their most recent conquest. Her ears flexed to enjoy every last raucous and lusty grunt from her most eager children: those wide-awake and unsated in the morning light.
Elisabeth’s muscles burned and her head ached. This was the regimen that followed regression. She was used to it now, but only because there was no other choice.
Aetius, on the other hand, seemed to think he had one. His rebellion meant keeping the wolf around for as long as possible.
It annoyed her on days like this.
She ruffled the fur between his ears and encouraged his change. The wolf stuffed his muzzle into her curvaceous bottom, and his nostrils puffed her scent. She swatted him away with faster reflexes.
“Not now,” she growled.
The wolf rose onto his haunches and offered a glimpse of visible excitement that matched the familiar look in his eyes. She was uninterested in going again so soon. The lake called her name and she hurried toward it, ignoring the wolf’s defeated whimper.
Elisabeth didn’t mind her lover’s unbridled lust. Their union was free of matrimony, and they took other partners when the mood struck. Neither one cared for cuckolded feelings, however, usually taking lovers while in the presence of one another.
In last evening’s raid, her pups had been over-eager, as children often were. Elisabeth had allowed them to attack while she stayed back with Aetius to savor the carnivorous fruits of her labor.
The pups had been clumsy and unfocused. They wounded many but killed none. Because Elisabeth didn’t want their outfit swollen to unmanageable numbers, she swept in with Aetius to ensure that the victims succumbed to their wounds.
Then they cherry picked a few captives to enjoy. Aetius found a young peasant girl whose flower had never been plucked. Elisabeth settled on a strapping young solider whose loins burned bright for her, despite witnessing his wife’s violation and disembowelment only moments earlier. That he was still able to perform sexually delighted her so—his morality and grief shred so fast that he couldn’t have had any to begin with. Yet, it wasn’t nearly as much fun as savoring Aetius’ jealousy as she forced him to sit back and watch.
Fucking a plaything was never truly about pleasures of the flesh. That kind of thrill had waned long ago. This was about leverage. Driving Aetius out of his mind with desire was one way of maintaining their bond.
And, she supposed, her control.
Creatures spawned from the devil’s loins should be unfeeling predators where humans were concerned. Elisabeth Luna didn’t allow them to live long enough to see any other side of her—the side she showed precious few. The side that showed she could fall in love the same as any woman.
Teasing Aetius in such ways kept his eyes alive with awe and wonder. Maybe it hurt him to see her bouncing up and down in the lap of a human wretch, but it was the sort of hurt that became necessary after a century of unadulterated love. It stoked his fires, and once the soldier had been well spent, lacquered in sweat and resting by the hearth, certain that his life would begin anew among his conquerors, the fun really began.
It started with the change. Claws broke through her fingertips a
nd she used them to slice the plaything’s stomach. His intestines spilled past the gashes like boiled linguine, and they feasted on his innards before Aetius seized her in violent, pent-up passion.
That’s what it was truly about, after all. Foreplay.
All of this while the virgin prisoner sat captive, marinating inside her own fear-turned-insanity. The sole witness to satanic depravity, she screamed until her voice stretched hoarse and disappeared. When she stopped being fun, she became the main course at evening’s end. Innocent blood being so much sweeter, they took their time devouring her in order to savor it.
Elisabeth felt nothing but tedium this morning as she waded into the lake with a bar of soap in hand. She scrubbed crusted blood off her body and watched the wolf run circles on the beach. He dropped into the dirt and rested his snout across his front paws. Shifting eyes stared with disappointment, annoyed that she’d changed back so soon.
She polished her body until her skin was soft and fresh. Satisfied, she plodded from the water, angry that Aetius couldn’t fetch a towel.
When they got back to the estate, the antechamber’s marble flooring felt cool on her feet. Broken bones and human gristle lined the great hall’s floors, a repulsive sight on a full stomach. Soon the smell would be too foul for her human nostrils and they’d be on their way.
The wolf trotted across the hall to the picked-over meat and wrestled a bone from a shoulder socket. His jaws clamped down and his paws steadied his hold long enough to snare the lingering beef.
Elisabeth watched him with swirling fondness and annoyance.
The wolf caught her eyes and froze in mid-bite, confused. His whimper indicated that he missed his huntress and was lost without her. After all this time, she knew how to read the animal.
When he continued his gluttonous feast, her attention drifted around the room to the displayed paintings. The décor was repulsive.
“Look,” she said. It was a conversation she might’ve had with Aetius, but the stupid wolf could only understand basic sentiments. “This is all so trite.”
She spoke in particular of an oil-on-panel piece that depicted Paris of Troy alongside three nude women. If the story was to be believed, and she hated that it once had been, then he was gifted with Helen by the supposed goddess of love, Venus. Apparently, Paris had chosen Venus as the most beautiful of three sisters, and the celestial being was so flattered by what a human thought, she’d handed him a woman to demonstrate her appreciation.
Vile.
Why should women of power give a damn what any mortal says of their allure? Because it’s a story cooked by long-swollen men.
The piece hung beside another rancid work called Lucretia. This one showed a moon-faced woman, her tiny breasts popping from her gown. She held a dagger at her own chest. Lucretia had been raped by a Roman king and was so overcome by shame that she was about to stab herself to death.
Elisabeth gnawed the inside of her cheek. These were depictions of women as victims and objects only. She’d created pieces so much better than this filth, and would again.
Compelled now to walk through the rest of the manor, she examined all the artwork. It was depressing to discover what passed for taste in this barren part of the world.
When she came back downstairs, she smacked the large wolf upside the head. “I am not going to spend my days speaking to myself.”
Aetius dropped to the floor and groaned. His thick coat of fur was soon swallowed by bulging arms of hardened flesh, and his wolf’s dome receded to become the face of the man she loved.
She fell on all fours and forced her tongue inside his mouth. “That is much better,” she said.
“I could fuck you again right now. The way you tease this animal is a burden no one should have to bear.”
Elisabeth smiled. “I have not begun to tease you.” Her laughter was cruel. He was going to have to do a lot better than spoiled pillow talk.
She took a seat on the lord baron’s throne, an elevated and unremarkable chair that, she imagined, was used to hear the whines of the peasantry. Worries of the day that included damaged crops, spreading smallpox, and whatever else passed for problems here. She rustled against the stone chair backing, but there was no getting comfortable.
“I grow weary of this,” she said.
“Then you’ve reached a decision?”
“I wish to leave this, all of it, behind.”
“Our pups will not make it out here.”
“That had better be a jape. Do we require training now? The pups will sate themselves as they see fit. This was never about my tutelage.”
“But the queen…”
“…will find another huntress. These are not responsibilities specific to me. Are you worried about the queen, or do you mistrust my judgment?”
“I have never trusted anyone more.”
“Once a soldier always a soldier, is that it? The Rome you served is no more.” Elisabeth outstretched her arms. “And this empire is one in name only. Far to the east and nothing like the one you used to know.”
“My loyalty is to you.”
Elisabeth cocked an eyebrow and studied him. His eyes remained soft and adoring. She kicked out her foot and stroked his thigh with the tips of her toes, scraping back and forth while a smile stretched across her lips.
“I am sorry, my love.” And she was. Her frustration had nothing to do with him. It wasn’t right to lash out because she was miserable. Most days, she loved his choice to remain inside his true skin. It was proof that his loyalty to their kind went beyond a need for instant gratification.
Aetius slipped a robe around his shoulders and kissed her forehead. She reached for his head and held it, keeping his lips pressed against her skin for a long while, closing her eyes to savor him.
Contented growls rumbled in the distance. “They are only now realizing their potential. The queen’s need for chaos will be well met by them.”
“I know you.” Aetius closed his gigantic hands around her bare shoulders, squeezing away the last of her changing pains. She moaned in approval. “You want to do more in this life than simply exist.”
“Pleasures of the flesh are as stale as day-old bread when there is nothing to sustain them.”
“You were not complaining last night,” he said and closed his wet mouth around her neck.
She batted him away and launched off the throne, wrapping a cloak around her naked form. “I spent my youngest days as a wolf in Rome. Painting, sculpting, creating…without those outlets, I would never have been able to accept what I became.”
“One day, I shall thank Fane for siring you. If he hadn’t rescued you from persecution…”
“Rescued is an interesting word.” She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the nearby picture. Christ’s crucifixion as depicted through a crude scrawl of pen and ink. The sight made her grimace, and prompted similar recollections.
Elisabeth’s hands balled into fists as she bounced up and down on her toes. “The men who took me from my village chose to make a very public display of my…blasphemous ways. There, Fane rescued me, sure. From one group of monsters to another.”
Becoming varcolac had been disorienting and terrifying. One of the queen’s oldest lieutenants, Anton Fane, had planted his curse inside of her, begging only that she serve by his side. Dark urges grew and spread like an infection, despite every effort to rid them. She had declined Fane’s invitation to rule, gravitating instead toward the city of Rome. She hoped it would receive her artistry and provide the escape she needed.
Her mind had been garbled confusion then. She subjugated the darkest thoughts by depicting on canvas the things she had done, along with the impulses that encouraged those actions. Her work was seen as a harsh rejection of the Christian movement, so radical that almost no one wanted anything to do with it. It brought scorn where she had expected praise.
More than two lifetimes separated those memories from where she now stood.
Aetius hugged her, this time without
sexual imposition. He whispered supportive assurances in her ear that suggested he knew what she was feeling. Understood why she’d feel compelled to settle down.
“That’s what this is about, yes?”
“Settling down?” She didn’t consider it settling. “I am tired of living for chaos. Why not find a place of our own?”
She never mentioned this before because Aetius had never stopped being a soldier. This would mean abandoning all that he was.
“Say where, my love. And it shall be built.” His speech was genuine, his heartbeat natural. As far as she could tell, his enthusiasm was sincere.
That made her smile.
Then laugh.
If it were so easy, she would’ve floated this suggestion long ago.
“I have never considered where to live…”
“Consider it now.” Aetius pushed her against the wall, knocking the crucifixion picture to the floor where it was better off. His kiss was gentle and went no further. “Once you reach a decision, I will see that you get there.”
“And you have no problem with this, at all?”
“The more I consider it, the happier I believe it will make me.”
“It would mean leaving these pups…”
“Like you said, we are not tutors, and there is considerable wealth in these lands for us to sack. Once we have taken it, I will get you a palace.”
The possibilities turned in Elisabeth’s head and she giggled like a girl with a childhood crush.
The Mediterranean was her first choice. The weather there was beautiful, the food varied and plentiful, but what of Paris? It was, after all, the cradle of modern culture. Those there were likely embrace her work without ostracizing her for a refusal to pander to the church.
“I will consider the options, my love. Now tell the pups to get ready. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
It was a nice thought of better days. It continued to turn in her mind as mud seeped into her mouth from the corners of her smile. She sank deeper into it as she continued bleeding out at the mountain’s base.
DEVIL’S ROW Page 4
